The nation’s major mobile-phone providers are keeping a treasure trove of sensitive data on their customers, according to a newly released Justice Department internal memo that for the first time reveals the data retention policies of America’s largest telecoms.

Excerpt: “Under the guise of a great speed increase, Amazon is offloading the backend processing of web content to their cloud-based-borg-system, caching that, and then delivering it via a single stream to your Fire device. What this potentially means is, Amazon is now the gatekeeper for all your browsing, and can easily scrape that content as it comes in to feed its front-end, you the user are the mechanical turk for amazon’s competitive advantage."

When the Federal Communications Commission last week issued its final network neutrality rules and said they would go into effect at the end of November, lawsuits against the policy could finally begin. Verizon and Metro PCS, both wireless carriers, had already made clear their intention to sue and were widely expected to be the first to do so. Instead, they were beaten to court by the activist group Free Press—one of the strongest supporters of network neutrality. Free Press has asked a federal appeals court to review the FCC’s rules—not because it finds them too strong, but because it finds them too weak. The group particularly objects to the way in which wireless companies are exempted from most of the meaningful anti-discrimination policies in the rules. While wireless operators can’t block Internet sites outright, and can’t simply ban apps that compete with their own services, they can do just about anything else; wired operators can’t. Free Press complains about the “decision to adopt one set of rules for broadband access via mobile platforms and a different set of rules for broadband access via fixed platforms.“ The distinction, it says, is “arbitrary and capricious” and it violates the law. In a statement, Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said, "Our challenge will show that there is no evidence in the record to justify this arbitrary distinction between wired and wireless Internet access. The disparity that the FCC’s rules create is unjust and unjustified. And it’s especially problematic because of the increasing popularity of wireless, along with its increasing importance for younger demographics and diverse populations who rely on mobile devices as their primary means for getting online.

"Free Press will fight in court to make these rules stronger.”

As for the FCC, it will soon face legal challenges to its rules from both sides of the net neutrality issue, a reminder that trying to please everybody sometime ends with everybody suing you instead.

(via Governor Valve) This governor valve uses oil. It is a more contemporary adaptation of Watt’s governor valve for steam engines. Here the system is shown with weights swinging around a horizontal axis. In the area of detail that shows the valve allowing oil to pass through, it does not reveal what should be turbine blades. These would be necessary to cause the weights to spin. A governor valve is an example of a self-regulating system.

I know this is very old news, but I pose the question, is this crowdsourcing in a positive way or just as exploitative as shirtwoot? As an interesting aside (coincidence since I just stumbled upon this article?) the film is playing in Boulder this weekend only.

“This film couldn’t have been made without technology,” editor Joe Walker told Wired.com. “Ten years ago it would’ve been impossible. We used YouTube’s ability to collect all of this material and then we had this sort of sweatshop of people, all multilingual film students, to sift through this material. It couldn’t have been done any other way. Nobody had ever done a film like this before, so we had to sort of make it up as we went along.”